


Latte

by truthwallflower



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: AU, Claude hates the cold, Coffee Shop, F/M, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:00:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22161445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/truthwallflower/pseuds/truthwallflower
Summary: What if Claude fell in love with Byleth at first sight?
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth & Claude von Riegan, My Unit | Byleth/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 6
Kudos: 149





	Latte

**Author's Note:**

> Hey fellas! Instead of editing the multiple other pieces I've already written or finishing the next chapter of my multi-fic, I wrote this oops. Inspired by a love of coffee and the song Machine by Scott Helman. I think it's a real good song for Claude and Byleth. Hope you guys enjoy!

Claude cracked open a yawn, feeling his jaw pop as his tongue curled in his mouth, tears blearily forming in the corners of his eyes. He smacked his lips together and blinked the moisture away lazily, focusing his sight on the textbooks and laptop in front of him with a slump of his shoulders.

Lorenz, legs crossed primly in front of him, stared in mild disgust. “You are like a dog.”

Claude flashed his chops at the man in response, teeth sparkling pearly white in the scant overcast light darkening the normally vibrant cafe. The pen loosely held behind his ear fell to the tabletop. “And my loyalty is always to you, old friend.”

He didn’t think Lorenz could roll his eyes further into the back of his skull if he tried. The man took a sip of his tea and promptly ignored him. Claude grinned further, taking a sip of his coffee like a real man. He was no fun. He should have known better than to come along to a study session Claude would have so much time to get bored at. The combination of being overworked from his job at the wyvern stables and the stress of consistently focusing on studying for such a long time was like introducing powder and keg.

The Almyran looked away from his unruffled friend and took the chance to glance around the cafe. They weren’t the only students there, despite the gloom and doom the sky promised outside. He spotted Edelgard and Dimitri, heads bent together over a tiny table with all their materials spread in front of them. Their legs were pressed flush against each other under the table. Claude smirked slyly at that. He couldn’t wait to see the look on Hilda’s face when he told her.

“Claude.”

“Yes, Lorenz?”

“Get back to work.”

He held back a snicker. For a politics major, he sure was frank when he wanted to be. The only one more spartan than him about due diligence was probably Lysithea. Nevertheless, Claude let his eyes tick back to his screen, trying to ignore how heavy it made his eyelids. His scattered papers had never looked more comfortable. 

The scratching of Lorenz’s pen and the soft murmuring of tired students made a surprisingly calming ambience. The smell of coffee and rain was intermingled here, a faint waft of bakery treats mingling pleasantly. Claude closed his eyes and inhaled. When he exhaled, it was loud in his ears, like it was a poignant thought never said aloud. He kept this up, just breathing slowly and softly.

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. His head laid on the mess of a table, arms dangling in his lap. Exhale. Inhale.

By his next exhale, he was asleep.

***

When Claude wakes up, it is to the bleary soft comfort of cinnamon scrolls and rain pelting outside, muted by the glass window. He has a crick in his neck and the foggy feeling of a good nap, hallmarked by the sticky sensation of drool dried to his cheek. His eyes, shimmering from a good dream, are barely opened, half lids and open mouth as he processes his consciousness. 

The bell on the door rings and it is the softest chime Claude has ever heard, the tinkling of a heart pull. He sits up, paper sticking to his slack jawed face. The bell was a herald, and it has conjured a beauty, a goddess of proportions that Claude, in falling apart converse and suddenly too warm in a grey sweatshirt, is barely capable of fathoming.

Later, when Lorenz sneers at him and pokes fun, he is sure to remind him of how he’d always said angels don’t exist and that he shouldn’t base assumptions on first glimpses after barely waking up, confusing dreams for reality.

But Claude is sure, he will always be sure, that the woman that hurries into his own little haven is of godly levels no man or woman could hope to beat.

The woman is drenched. From head to the littlest tips of her toes. She clutches her laptop bag to her chest, shoulders still hunched over to protect its contents, absolutely sopping wet in ripped jeans and a thin t-shirt. Her green green hair is somehow wild, soaked yet still resisting the flatness rain should produce, with pieces here and there cowlicking in defiance.

She barely seems aware, eyelashes falling over thoughtful teal eyes, lips formed in a natural cupid’s bow Claude thinks he could sip from like a prayer cup. He can see a small scar peeking out from the tops of her collar and his curiosity flares tenfold.

The woman, stars Claude couldn’t breath, walked tentatively, as if she were intruding on a private moment she yearned to join, her loafers squelching loudly. The din of the cafe, practically mute to Claude until that moment, seemed to quiet, a hush falling over the room that no one seemed quite willing to break.

The stillness broke when, with an obnoxiously loud flutter, the piece of paper stuck to Claude’s cheek unstuck itself and fell to the floor.

It floated to the feet of the goddess. She blinked cutely, her poker face so darn inquisitive Claude felt his eyebrows scrunch upwards in awe. She bent to pick it up and walked towards him.

“Here.” she said.

Claude reached out to take the paper from her fingers, absorbed in the slight smile on her face that seemed to attack his senses. When he took it from her grasp, their fingers grazed. He flinched, minuscule, her fingers so icy cold he felt a shiver up his own spine. A droplet of water slipped sneakily down her face and off the slope of her nose, splashing onto his face in but a moment.

He might have imagined the slight flush creeping up her neck. “O-oh, sorry.”

Something told Claude that the stutter she stumbled over was something of a rarity. Nevertheless, he imagined his slack jawed, pupil blown expression he worshipped upon her was probably a little off-putting. 

Claude just nodded mutely, still staring, and she nodded her head, that undertone of embarrassment still poignant, and walked away. It was only in that moment he remembered the drool on his face, and it was with a curse he hurriedly swiped at his face, ignoring the dry look he suddenly noticed Lorenz pinning on him. 

“Smooth,” he added, when Claude continued to curse at the ink smudges rubbing onto his hands. It would be just Claude’s luck that he would make a girl smile from the ink stains and dried drool making themselves home on his face. Normally, he considered his face his best feature.

The little puddle the woman had made on the floor while standing there gave him pause, even as Lorenz started mildly lecturing him. He thought of the way the girls, sans Marianne, had all had cause to nag at him about his attitude towards girls and dating.

He thought about the tremors lacing their way up the woman’s arms, goosebumps prominent, and the bone deep cold carried in the tips of her fingers. Claude got it, really he did. Faerghus winters sucked. Fodlan as a whole was a type of coldness he wasn’t accustomed to, despite living there the past seven years, and he had taken a long time to fully begin dressing appropriately for the weather.

Or, at least, that’s what Claude told himself, as he abruptly stood up, hands determined on the edge of the table. Lorenz stopped talking for a moment, sputtering and demanding what had gotten into him all of a sudden.

Claude scanned the room with keen green eyes. He knew exactly what had gotten into him. Shuffling around a tiny table far from the cafe’s heater, barely big enough for a plate, let alone the giant, ancient laptop she was dredging out of her bag, was that same woman making his heart run a little too fast.

It took an embarrassingly indefinable amount of time for Claude to stride over to her. He made sure to keep his back straight as he smiled genuinely at her. He offered a hand.

“Come sit with us? We’re right next to the heater.”

He couldn't help noticing her planner, spread wide over her keyboard, announcing her name. Byleth. Byleth Eisner. A piece of his heart clicked back into place. A clock finding its batteries, or a a key schnicking into a lock. 

Byleth blinked loquaciously. He didn’t quite know how that could happen. But her eyes and the slightest movements of her posture seemed to tell him so much more than what anyone had ever told him about themselves.

“No, you’re not.” 

Claude flushed, pink coming to his cheeks even as his grin widened. “I know. That was a trick. I was planning on offering you my sweatshirt to prove to you what a gallant gentleman I am.”

Claude knows if he was in earshot, Lorenz would probably be choking on his tea right now. Claude, gentlemanly? No, his friends would rather describe him as swashbuckling and suave. That’s what Claude liked to think, anyway.

Byleth had a smile on her face, slightly more charmed than the sneak peek he’d gotten earlier. “What makes you so sure that would warm me up?”

Claude’s eyes flashed and his cheeks started hurting from how far he stretched his smile. This woman was amazing. He never knew he could feel so giddy about just a little flirting. Nevertheless, while his smile kept up a boyish happiness he didn’t quite understand the extent of, his eyes hypnotised. His voice lowered an octave. “You’ll know.”

Claude lets a beat of a moment pass, pulling it taut, and then leaves her alone here. He doesn’t want to risk saying something stupid, and if that last comment had crossed a line, he didn’t want to face the open rejection on Byleth’s face. 

It is why he is so surprised, face lighting up completely, when two minutes later, items all packed up, Byleth stands over his table, an expectant look in her eyes. He scrambles to accomodate her, pulling out a chair and clearing half his things off the table with a sweep and a clattering of miscellaneous items to the floor.

“Thank you.”

Claude is oddly proud of himself at his haste. He doesn’t notice Lorenz gaping at him. Byleth is too busy with that small smile he was beginning to think was just for him, directed at Claude.

Claude’s hands are as sure as they’ve ever been when he hands her his mug of coffee. “For warmth?” he teases.

Byleth pushes a piece of damp hair behind her ear, face still soft. When she takes a sip, she lets out a high laugh that sounds like a serenade. Her smile is open and beaming across her features and Claude feels physical pain in his chest, eyes wide and face enraptured by this sound he feels is blasphemy for never being heard by him before.

Her eyes twinkle when she smiles. “It’s cold,” she tells him.

“Ah,” he barely croaks out. 

Lorenz titters across the table from them, finally having had enough of being ignored, and his hero complex demanding he save Byleth both from Claude and the weather still soaked into her shirt, rupturing the moment.

Claude buys her a coffee that day, and learns she just transferred here. He learns she is staying with her aunt. He learns that she broke her collarbone when she was twelve, and that her hair when dry is what Hilda would definitely refer to as ‘sex hair’, he learns she speaks two languages and he learns her lips tilt slightly more to the left when she smiles. He learns he can’t quite breath, gets too lightheaded, when she stares at him for slightly too long and he learns she can hold her own in a debate between himself and Lorenz, can even win one.

There are so many other things he learns, he feels more ready to take an exam on everything Byleth Eisner instead of Econ201. 

(He also learns her phone number that day, a fact that causes Lorenz to smirk and later Hilda to cry and Raphael to cheer, Lysithea to pretend to be superior, and Ignatz to smile and Marianne to congratulate him. Leonie opens up the beer, and Claude should really be offended by how over the top they all react, but damn him to the stars if he can’t stop thinking about her. Her, her, her, her)

Needless to say, he fails the real exam.


End file.
